


stuck on you

by fruitbattery



Series: Cruel and Beautiful [1]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Canon-Typical Bastardry, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Kissing, Other, Shenanigans, pining but they're not dumb about it, this is a soft mature almost teen btw there is no Explicit Racy Content, this is the stupidest thing i've ever written i am very proud
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22979101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitbattery/pseuds/fruitbattery
Summary: It's Lyfrassir Edda's first heist with the Mechanisms, so of course something had to go wrong, and of course it went wrong with Marius in particular.
Relationships: Lyfrassir Edda/Marius von Raum
Series: Cruel and Beautiful [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184993
Comments: 17
Kudos: 210
Collections: Stowaways' Shenanigans





	stuck on you

There’s been a buzz going around the Aurora for a few months. Word on the ship is, they’re heading towards a master heist. Not everyone is equally excited, though– Ivy, Brian, and Ashes seem neutral at best, while Raphaella, Marius, Tim, and Jonny are positively psyched. (Nastya is just Nastya, as enigmatic to Lyf as she’s always been, while the Toy Soldier is, as always, Very Happy To Be Involved!) The excitement is nothing new, but after a few decades with the Mechanisms, Lyf decides they’re finally going to try and participate in…. whatever it is that happens when the Mechs go planetside.

Lyf finds Jonny in the engine room, assisting Nastya with her repairs. They sit down against a wall, just watching the two of them in their dance for a few minutes. 

“Wrench.” And Jonny passes it over. “Could you hold this for a second?” And he does. Nastya goes to work, bolting something in place. After a few minutes of this careful choreography, Lyf speaks up.

“Jonny, would you mind telling me what the weird-ass energy on the ship for the last month has been about?”

Jonny cranes his neck back from where he’s holding a hunk of metal high above his head. “We’re planning a heist, actually. First time in…. how long’s it been since you joined up?”

Lyf thinks, really hard. “About…… thirty years? Give or take?” Fuck, if that isn’t weird. A day feels like a week and a week feels like a year with these people, but at the same time, thirty years feels like it might as well be two seconds. Maybe this is a taste of what immortality might hold.

Jonny does some mental math. “Our first heist as a team of 9 in almost a hundred years! Of course, we’ve done smaller ones, but since your three got themselves arrested 90 years ago, and Nastya wasn’t back until shortly after you joined, it’s been a while.” Jonny seems genuinely happy and excited for once– it should put Lyf off more than it does.

Lyf’s got a decision to make, though, and they simply nod, slowly and distractedly. “Cool. Cool.” _Fuck it._ “Can I come?”

Marius hasn’t done a heist in a hundred fucking years. Goddamn. He’s almost forgotten, but a well-planned and well-executed Big Crime tops his list of Fun Things To Do. Adrenaline singing, heart thumping, the joyful thrill of victory. 

Almost as fun for Marius is giving Lyf shit. Almost.

It’d started about five years before the Bifrost Incident, when Lyf had been transferred to the prison he, Raph, and Ivy had been languishing in. Marius had known staying put would be worth it when this new inspector arrived– somehow both cocky and jaded, they’d taken an instant dislike to this particular group of prisoners. Soon, the three of them had taken to thinking up the best ways to annoy Lyf when they knew they were going to come by.

_They’ve orchestrated a tableau of sorts– Ivy stands pressed up against the bars, gripping them and staring through them with a manic sort of look in her eyes, a picture Lyf is sure is meant to be creepy. Raph has flown up to the ceiling and hidden where she’s pretty sure she’s out of sight, although she’s wrong, and Marius has posed on his bed in a way he seems to think is sexy, although it really isn’t. Lyf approaches, radiating boredom and annoyance. “Von Raum. Alexandria.” They look up very pointedly at Raphaella’s dangling leg. “La Cognizi.” They cross their arms. “No need for the theatrics, I’m only checking to see if you need anything urgently.”_

_Marius, unmoved from his position on the bed, waggles his eyebrows. “Don’t you know it, honeybee.”_

_Lyf sighs._

Over the (thirty, apparently) years since Lyf joined their little bandit squad, they’ve all grown more comfortable around them, and Lyf has grown more comfortable around the rest of the crew as well. They’ve struck up a good friendship with Nastya and as much of a friendship as you can really have with the Toy Soldier, and the rest of the crew is certainly not on more of a hair trigger around them than around anyone else. Marius, though– that’s a different story. Lyf had always had a certain disdain for him during the prison days– Marius can’t say he blames them, it was always so fun to be annoying– and over the years, that disdain has developed wonderfully into a close, biting rivalry. It’s exactly what Marius needs– someone who gives as good as they get verbally, but who won’t shoot him, and who he has no desire to shoot. Sure, the two are capable of having a serious conversation when the need arises, but otherwise they’re perfectly content to squabble like teenagers.

If, lately, Marius has been walking away from these exchanges feeling like an elated teenager with a crush, well, that’s perfectly natural. The man’s hundreds of years old, sure, but he’s got _eyes,_ and Lyf’s got a sharp wit, a kind streak a mile wide, and a body that, as far as any of them can tell, literally won’t quit. Marius isn’t keen to test that last one, but it does provide him a certain amount of comfort in his Lyf-related daydreams.

And dream-dreams.

It’s _fine._

The plans for the heist are made and set in motion. The Aurora touches down on Devv’aq in the dead of night, a combination of Brian’s careful piloting and Nastya’s careful soothing ensuring her landing is completely silent. This is the first planet in a while that the Mechanisms have come onto with stealth rather than guns blazing, but then again, it’s Lyf’s first heist. Lyf had expressed concern about going in guns blazing, given, well, the uncertain status of their own mortality post-Bifrost, and no one aboard the Aurora had been about to actually risk their life. Yes, it’s been thirty years, in which Lyf hasn’t visibly aged a day, but they haven’t had any near-fatal encounters either. (They try not to dwell on how often it had been Marius preventing such encounters.)

Jonny and Tim are setting up a large hose and pump to drain into an emptied swimming pool aboard the Aurora. As far as Lyf understands, it will be used to siphon the planet’s proprietary glue formula, extracted and condensed from the sap of trees that grow only here, for….. some purpose. Tim had gone all technical when Lyf had asked him, but Lyf’s pretty sure the Mechanisms just want this glue to wreak some havoc. It’s supposed to be one of the strongest adhesives found this half of the sector.

Lyf’s sure that this mission will go just fine, and that absolutely nothing will go wrong. Nope. Noooo siree.

Marius is quite proud of the plan, actually. It might not be elegant, but– actually, fuck it. It’s fuckin’ _elegant_. He allows himself a little giggle at the rare sight of Jonny and Tim both actually wearing their goggles as they bring the end of the tube up to the door of one of the manufacturing huts. Sure, they parked the ship nearby, but they’re not sure where in the building the glue vats will be, so the two of them are fumbling with a _lot_ of tube. Ivy is watching, arms crossed, from the top of the Aurora’s entrance ramp. She’s too far away for Marius to make out her expression, but he’d wager a good percentage that she looks unimpressed. Ashes, Marius knows, has declared the whole project “frankly too silly and far-fetched to work” and is standing by out of sight with their plan B: a long-range catapult and firebomb for distraction purposes, hopefully letting the Aurora leave without endangering Lyf.

Speaking of Lyf, Marius notices that they and the Toy Soldier have just emerged beside Ivy. Lyf seems groggy and is rubbing their eyes and blinking away sleep, hair still mussed. Even at such a distance, Marius’s heart does a little jump at the sight. The Toy Soldier, meanwhile, is doing a very stiff impression of cheering on Jonny and Tim with absolutely no sound.

Marius’s heart swells even more as Brian, Nastya, and Raphaella emerge behind the three already on the ramp, Raphaella clutching a few test tubes and one unfortunate space mouse. The crew haven’t gotten up to any good ol’ hijinks in the last five years or so, and it feels good to be back.

Lyf watches from the relative safety of the Aurora as Jonny and Tim disappear into the small building, each bearing mountains of coiled tube on their shoulders. They’ve spent enough time with these people that they can pretty much feel what they feel at this point, and this heist in particular has elicited a wide range of reactions. Ivy is practically dripping with quiet amusement, as is Nastya. Brian radiates the nervous energy that Lyf likes to describe as “getaway driver mode”, which in this case is exactly what he should be radiating if Lyf wants them to all make it off-planet. The Toy Soldier’s energy is pretty much unchanged: all Lyf has ever really been able to get from it is Enthusiasm and Love, and tonight (this morning? Lyf’s lost all track of time) is no different. And Raphaella’s practically _vibrating_ with excitement. The crew of the Aurora had been planning to do _something_ with this glue ever since they heard about it over a year ago, and Raph was always the most vocally enthusiastic about it. Something about samples, and experiments, but always in that tone that Lyf by that point knew meant to stay away if you didn’t want to become a test subject. 

Lyf’s not sure how long they stand there in quiet contemplation before the tube shudders next to them, and an off-white, gloopy substance starts to emerge from the building. It’s not long after that, though, that an alarm begins to sound somewhere deep in the bowels of the building.

Marius hears the alarm go off, and his legs move before his brain does, propelling him through the door of the building. He draws his pistol as he runs, keeping the tube on his right. He follows it down a set of stairs and through a winding bit of corridor before reaching, presumably, the vat room. 

Jonny and Tim are in the center of the room, surrounded by a half dozen of what look like hired muscle, in boiler suitsonesie uniforms, all adorned with rapidly spreading bloodstains. “Never stood a chance,” Jonny crows, holstering his pistol and returning to leaning against a pillar. Marius recognizes the “cool, calm, but ready to fire again at a moment’s persuasion” look from centuries of raiding together. 

Raphaella bursts through the door with a drawn handgun a moment later, and Jonny shoots two inches from her left hip. “Warn me next time. We’re on high alert, la Cognizi, do keep up.” 

Raph scoffs. “High alert, my ass. Remind me who set off the glue level alarms?” 

Jonny just rolls his eyes and keeps watching the door. Raphaella opens her jacket and pulls out a few test tubes and sticks, and gets to work collecting samples of the different vats. Eventually, the group hear footsteps outside the room, and a voice drifts down the hall, loudly stage whispering.

“It’s Me! Don’t Shoot! It’s Me! Don’t Shoot!”

Jonny, of course, shoots anyway, and the Toy Soldier’s pinky finger splinters off as it enters the room. “Not Cool!”

Jonny grins. “Just keeping you on your toes, TS.”

Marius doesn’t think the Soldier is capable of frowning, but it sure is trying. “But I Don’t Have Any Toes!”

Jonny, for once, is momentarily struck dumb. “Why. How. How did I not know that before, and why do I know it now. Gods. Why.”

“You Never Asked!”

It’s a monumental effort for Marius to suppress his laughter, but he manages. He does _not_ want to get left behind on this planet. Jonny composes himself and asks the Soldier, “What are you doing here?”

It snaps to attention and salutes. “Madam Alexandria Told Me To Tell You That The Swimming Pool Is Almost Full, And You Should Probably Stop Pumping.”

Immediately, Tim heaves the end of the tube out of the glue vat. “Thanks, Soldier, for leading with that vital information.”

Marius can’t help himself. “If Jonny would ask questions first before shooting, maybe it would’ve, _Tim._ ”

Jonny rolls his eyes, again. Marius wonders if they ever get tired. “If Marius would ask first before whipping out his violin, he’d get shot a lot less, but we can’t all act optimally for our own needs and wants.”

Oh, they’re really in it now. Marius grins, intending to deliver a cutting retort, but what comes out is, “Something, something, I’m rubber you’re glue blah blah blah bye. I’m gonna head back to the ship.”

“Who’s glue, stickyboy?”

And suddenly all he hears is Jonny’s laughter and the crack of his gun, and all he feels is _grossness_ , forever and ever and ever and _oh god make it stop._

When Marius finally comes back to himself, he is absolutely covered in glue. Luckily, none of it has gotten in his mouth. Unluckily, no one is around, and he can’t even hear anyone speaking in the distance. _Fuck._ He seems to have been knocked into one of the glue vats by the force of Jonny’s shot, and however long he’s been lying there while slowly regenerating has rendered him completely stuck. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the thought that he’ll be stuck here forever.

Twenty minutes later, all Marius’s struggling has managed to do is tire him out. He can barely push his arms and legs against the force of the glue, and so he lets them drift where they are, and sighs _very_ deeply. Maybe someone will take pity on him in fifty or a hundred years, and come fish him out.

Lyf watches from his seat in the control room as all the Mechanisms file back onto the ship. Raphaella is first, test tubes in hand, and she scurries off almost immediately in the direction of her lab. Ivy isn’t far behind her, and the Toy Soldier, Tim, and Jonny follow soon after. Ashes slinks onto the ship still holding their firebombs and looking disappointed. Nastya and Brian are still in the control room.

“Alright, Brian,” rumbles Jonny a bit too loudly, “let’s blow this popsicle stand. Marius…. has elected to stay behind.”

Brian just nods and fires up the engine, and Lyf is…. massively confused. They might not know Marius as well as the rest of the crew does, but they’re pretty sure this isn’t something Marius would do voluntarily. “Hey, uh, guys? Guys?”

Nastya looks at them expectantly, but says nothing, so they continue. “Why are we just leaving Marius behind?”

Jonny doesn’t even bother to look at Lyf when he responds. “Sometimes members of our little band decide to take a brief sojourn off-ship. We’ll be back for him in thirty years or so.” 

Lyf’s head is spinning. _Thirty years?_ What the fuck? They must know way less about immortality than they thought, because that does not sound sustainable or pleasant. “What did he say he was gonna do there, exactly?”

Jonny snorts. “He didn’t tell you, lovebird? Thought for sure you’d know everything about each other by now.” 

Brian’s engaged the throttle by this point, and Lyf can hear the exit ramp folding back up as the ship begins to take off. Lyf’s heart is in their throat, and they still don’t really understand what’s going on, but they know they’re angry at Jonny. This is nothing new, of course, but this time it’s somehow bigger. The anger is threatening to burst out somewhere, and Lyf’s eyes are blurring with…. something. At first it looks like it might be tears, but Lyf’s pretty sure that tears don’t split light into rainbows nearly that well. The Aurora is starting to pick up speed, rising to the top of the treetops and preparing to zoom off into orbit. Lyf hears their own voice, very distantly.

**_Turn around._ **

Brian nearly jumps out of his chair. Dimly, Lyf is aware that the entire room is staring at them, and they can vaguely process that the top of their head seems to be brushing the high ceiling, but other than that it’s just anger, confusion, and hurt. Is this how Lyf should look forward to being treated, should they be deemed properly immortal? Do the Mechanisms really care so little about one another? _Is Lyf going to have to spend the next thirty years waiting anxiously to see Marius again?_

Brian shudders. “Alright, alright, just. Don’t do anything stupid.” Jonny is still staring at Lyf, looking shell-shocked, but he gathers himself and fires a shot at them.

It hits.

Abruptly, Lyf is lying on the floor. Something warm and wet is soaking their ribs, but there’s no pain. Nastya’s face swims in and out of focus above them.

“They are awake,” she announces to the rest of the crew. She looks Lyf right in the eyes. “Now. What in the _fuck_ was that?” 

Lyf’s head is _ringing_ with pain, but they struggle to sit up anyway. Nastya keeps her hand on their shoulder, stopping them. “No. You are staying here until we figure out if you are safe to keep on board.”

Lyf brings a hand up to cover their eyes from the glare of the overhead lights. “I. Uh.” The only thing they remember is their mind splintering into its base emotions, and the shards that were _anger_ and _hurt_ and, strangely, wistfulness, kept stabbing them in the brain stem. Also, rainbows. They tell Nastya as much, and she frowns. 

“It sounds like the influence of Yog-Sothoth runs deeper in you than we had previously thought. I will have to ask Raphaella to run some tests.”

Lyf blinks rapidly. “Um. Okay.” Sure. That might as well happen. Fine. They’ll deal with that later, which is absolutely a healthy way of thinking. 

If there were any chance of Lyf not immediately pushing that little tidbit to the back of their mind anyway, Brian chooses that moment to touch the ship down on the forest floor again. Lyf jumps– they honestly weren’t expecting to have come back at all. Maybe being some sort of Eldritch Monster Not Otherwise Specified has its perks. ( _Later, Lyf._ ) 

Tim wordlessly offers Lyf a holstered pistol. Lyf takes it and clips it to their belt with a grateful nod. Jonny, from the corner, offers them one end of a long wooden pole. “You’ll probably need this. Go inside, take a right down the stairs, and then a left, straight, right, right. Or, you could just call out his name oh so sweetly.”

Lyf accepts the pole, and shoots Jonny in the chest.

Marius, meanwhile, has decided to count crimes to pass the time. It’s been a while since he’s been stuck somewhere, truly stuck with nothing to do, and within the hour he’s gotten through about 5 years of crimes the Mechanisms have done while he’s been with them. (By his tally, that’s about a thousand crimes.) 

It’s not long after the 1,000-crimes mark that he hears footsteps on the stairs. Great. Marius just loves being a sitting duck. “Whoever’s coming, I’m armed!” he calls out, hoping against hope that the lie is convincing. The footsteps stop.

The barrel of a pistol edges around the door, and a shot goes wide above Marius’s head. Whoever is shooting has clearly not shot much before, or at least not for a good while. “Shit! Fuck! Learn to shoot, dipshit!” Marius has no idea who he’s taunting, but when Lyf’s head pokes around the door, he groans.

Of course it had to be them.

When Jonny’d handed Lyf the long pole, Lyf had thought it was some sort of crude joke. Now, though, looking at Marius up to his neck in glue, Lyf is almost grateful to the bastard. Almost, because it means that Jonny knew exactly where Marius was, and why he wasn’t on the ship, and was just going to leave him behind.

Fucker.

The anger doesn’t stop it from being an almost painfully hilarious situation to see, though. Marius’s face has mostly been spared, but his hair is caked with the thick glue, and he isn’t moving. He just glowers at Lyf, with all the menace of a wet, grumpy dog. It’s kind of adorable. Lyf takes a moment to settle into the obnoxious persona they’ve seen Marius put on so many times before, and strides into the room. 

“Von Raum. What have we here? It looks like we’ve gotten ourselves into a rather…. sticky situation.”

Marius just glares harder. “Shut the fuck up, Edda, and help me out of here.”

Lyf leans against the door frame, limbs purposely akimbo in a mocking show of “sex appeal”. “What’s this? _You_ telling _me_ to shut up? Oh, the tables _have_ turned.” Lyf is having way too much fun with this. “Am I being _obnoxious?_ Or smug? Oh no, however will I–”

“Edda, I swear, if you don’t shut up and get me out of this vat of glue right now, I’ll–”

“You’ll what? Shoot me?” But Lyf is already moving– they swing the pole around and reach it out towards Marius. “I’d like to see you try.”

Marius, with an absolutely monumental effort, manages to raise one arm above the glue. Luckily, it’s the metal one, so the weakness in his limbs from struggling against the glue doesn’t affect its grip strength, and he holds firm as Lyf braces themself against the doorway and begins to heave. Lyf isn’t a small person– they’re taller than Marius by a good six inches, and stocky, with a whole lotta raw strength built in the years they’d been running with the crew. So Marius has very little doubt they’ll be able to pull him out.

Not that they don’t look _really_ good straining to do it. Marius can appreciate a sweaty person with biceps just as well as the next queer, thank you very much. After a few minutes of fruitless pulling, Marius sees a lightbulb go off in Lyf’s brain, and they drag over a piece of machinery that’s about half their height. Using whatever it is as a fulcrum, Lyf huffs and puffs and manages to lever Marius far enough out of the goop that he can catch hold of the edge and crawl to safety. 

“Ew.”

The glue isn’t exactly pleasant to be covered in, even less so when he’s merely covered in it and not swimming in it. The texture stands out more, slime clinging between his fingers and toes. He’s sure his clothes are ruined, as is his gun, and he’s gonna have to do some serious maintenance work on his arm. _Fuck_ Jonny.

Lyf can’t help staring at Marius. He just looks so _disgruntled_. The gross substance is dripping off him onto the floor, and his face looks like he’s just eaten something horrifically sour. “Come on,” Lyf entreats him, “let’s get your sticky ass clean before this shit dries on you and I have to carry you.”

“Wouldn’t mind that at all, Inspector– being carried by your big strong arms might mean you’re being useful for once.”

Lyf laughs, a light and easy thing, and Marius wants to make them do it again immediately. “Marius, I exerted quite a lot of effort even getting Brian and Jonny to agree to come back for you.”

Marius, despite the known time sensitivity of his condition, pauses. “Wait. Lyf. You…. they were going to leave me here?”

Lyf stops too, just for a second. They don’t look at Marius. “Yeah. I… didn’t want them to.” They shake their head. “We’ll talk about it later, I promise. Right now, I just want to get that glue off of you.”

Marius pushes his own hurt to the side as he answers. “Are you sure there’s not anything else you’d like to get off of me, Inspector?”

When Lyf blushes this time, it’s in all the colors of the rainbow.

The pair are welcomed back onto the ship readily, if not inconspicuously. Lyf’s not sure if Jonny’s laughter is aimed at Marius or at them, although he’s definitely laughing at Marius when Marius tries and fails to shoot Jonny with a glued-up gun. Lyf just rolls their eyes and steers Marius towards the nearest shower.

By the time they’ve gotten to what turns out to be Lyf’s shower, Marius’s movements are slowing down considerably. Lyf gives him a subtle poke in the arm, and it only confirms what they’d been worried about– the glue is drying, and fast. “Come on, Marius, get in. We don’t have much time.” 

Marius marches stiffly into the shower stall, and utterly fails to raise his arm enough to get the water flowing. “Oh Lyf,” he says in a fake-swooning voice while batting his (miraculously unglued) eyelashes, “won’t you wash me?”

Wordlessly, Lyf takes down the handheld shower head and blasts Marius in the face with it, on full pressure.

When Lyf decides that Marius has spluttered enough, they move on to his shoulders, where there’s actually glue, and soon enough chunks of half-solid glue start to break away. Lyf shudders for the fate of their shower drain. Soon enough, though, the rapidly drying glue stops yielding to the water pressure, and Lyf sighs. They roll up their pants and step into the shower, ignoring Marius’s eyebrow waggles as they step behind him.

“This glue is no longer going to come off by itself.” And Lyf starts on Marius’s hair.

Now, when he’d first woken up in the glue vat, Marius had been glad that he’d cut his hair recently, as he’d been floating on his back, and his hair had been fully lost in the sauce. To a certain extent, he’s still grateful, because it’s less hair to get glue out of.

However, Marius isn’t above admitting he also wants to keep Lyf’s hands in his hair for as long as possible. They’re _very_ nice hands. It doesn’t take long, when you’re living in such close proximity, to notice little habits someone has, so by now Marius knows that Lyf always has a tube of hand lotion around, and their hands must be (are!!!) incredibly soft at this point. They’re also in a phase of growing out their nails, and. Well. 

Marius is still above purring like a cat. Barely.

Lyf is close behind him, fingernails and water both working to dislodge a particularly stubborn clump of glue. Eventually, it comes out, but not without taking a few hairs with it, and Marius makes a truly embarrassing squeak. 

“Why Marius, I didn’t know you’d turned into a mouse. Perhaps we should stock up on cheese? I’m sure Nastya would be happy to– oh!”

Marius, in his infinite wisdom, has wrested control of the shower head from Lyf and hit the lever to swing it over to the freezing cold side, intending to shock them, but hasn’t thought to also point it away from himself. The resulting icy-cold stream of water makes them both shriek for real, and Marius drops the shower head on Lyf’s foot.

It’s a good two minutes of trying to catch the showerhead, now flailing around under the power of a concentrated stream of very cold water, before Lyf has the presence of mind to just turn the water off. The two of them stand in the small shower, breathing heavily, and Lyf imagines they must make quite a sight– shivering, each fully clothed but absolutely drenched, and Marius’s legs still half covered in glue. 

And, as it turns out, standing in half an inch of unmoving water, as the shower drain has finally given in. Lyf groans for the hundredth time that day. “As you seem to have royally fucked up my shower, I’m going to find Raphaella and see if she’s come up with a solvent.” Lyf takes a towel down from their shelf and wraps their shoulders in it. “Don’t get glue on my nice towels.” 

Marius is still cold, so as soon as Lyf leaves, he picks the nicest, fluffiest towel off the rack, and wraps it around his shoulders. After a moment, he picks the second nicest as well, and sits down on the lid of the toilet, draping it over his legs. It doesn’t take Lyf long to get back– Raph’s lab isn’t far away– and when the door opens, there’s an immediate huff of annoyance.

“ _What_ did I say, Von Raum?”

Lyf carefully sets down a small beaker on the vanity, and turns towards Marius, who’s wearing what he’s pretty sure isn’t a shit-eating grin. It was supposed to be, he’s sure of that, but he’s suddenly too giddy to form it properly. Lyf looks _adorably_ frustrated, and Marius is reminded of just how much riling up Lyf might be his favorite duty as a Mechanism, so he probably looks significantly sappier than intended.

“Please stop touching my towels, Marius.” 

Lyf reaches for the one around Marius’s shoulders, but he holds it tight. “No, I don’t think I will.”

With force that Marius should’ve remembered they were capable of, Lyf yanks the towel out of his hands. “That is _my_ property, Von Raum. I will not have you sullying it.” 

They’re smiling, though, and it’s honestly quite distracting. Marius isn’t too proud to admit to himself that that’s why Lyf is able to snatch their other towel back so easily. “Ooh, Lyf, snatching off my coverings like that. Saucy, saucy.”

Lyf ignores the tone. “It’s gonna get worse. Are you gluey under your clothes as well? Raph thought this might be solved quicker if we did a load of laundry with her solvent in with the detergent. Besides, I won’t have you dripping more watery glue all over the ship. Nastya’d murder me.” 

Marius can’t help but grin even wider. “Oh, _Inspector_ , I never thought I’d hear you admit it.” He turns to the mirror over the vanity and addresses his reflection. “ _Dahling._ They want my _clothes_ off.” 

Lyf’s expression is stony, but their cheeks are rainbow again. “Are you done? I’m going to go get you a robe for while your clothes are in the wash. Pour a little of that beaker down the shower drain while you’re at it.” And they turn and leave.

Bastard.

As Lyf rummages through their wardrobe for that one spare bathrobe they KNOW they have somewhere, they curse themselves a little for ruining the moment. This level of banter is kind of new, yeah, but not that new, and they’re pretty sure it’s established that given enough pressure, _something_ will happen between them. They just weren’t expecting it now. They also, frankly, weren’t expecting the washing-glue-out-of-his-hair bit to feel quite that intimate, but you know what? They’re into it. _Intimacy can be nice, Lyf_ , they tell themself, finally locating the robe and an appropriate pair of sweatpants, _and you’re allowed nice things._

Marius makes them happy no matter what their relationship with him ends up being. He’s not a physical danger to them– he’s far too careful for that– and by this point Lyf doesn’t think he’d ever cut them out of his life. They’re too integrated on the Aurora by now, and besides, they’ve seen how much their banter cheers Marius up when he’s feeling down. Their position in his life is safe.

This confidence allows Lyf to simply calmly arch one eyebrow when they open their bathroom door to find Marius wearing only a towel around his waist, his clothes folded neatly on the floor. A _third_ one of their nice towels, as Lyf notices almost immediately. 

“Von Raum. Please stop looking so smug, and _stop sullying my towels._ ” They toss the bundle of clothes at his chest. “Put some pants on, bring your clothes and the solvent to Raph’s lab. I don’t want them sticking to my floor.” Lyf takes a breath. “And, after you’ve done that, meet me in my room. We have some things to discuss.” And they shut the door behind them. 

Well, something is certainly going to happen, even if it’s just an Important Talk. Lyf takes steadying breaths as they change out of their still-sodden clothes into something casual. Sweatpants, they decide, and a t shirt. No, a button down. _This isn’t that important, Edda. Relax. He likes you anyway._ They settle on a zip-up hoodie, to combat the lingering chill from the shower. 

No sooner has Lyf zipped up the hoodie, when they hear a knock on the door. They take a deep breath. “Come in.”

Marius opens the door to Lyf’s room, feeling decidedly too nervous. He knows that he’s only wearing Lyf’s clothes because they’re what they provided him with, but a little part of his brain is screaming _no! Too intimate! They’ll think it’s weird!_ Lyf is sitting on their bed, also in soft, comfy clothing, and Marius’s stomach flutters a little. Bantering Lyf may be great, Sweaty Lyf might be hot, but Marius decides he likes Comfy Lyf best of all. He wants to see Comfy Lyf more often. Their hair is still wet, and their old tic of playing with it has come back with a vengeance, and Marius wants nothing more than to hold their hands and comb their hair for them. Anything to soothe their obvious nerves.

Lyf looks him directly in the eyes, and Marius has to sit down. He chooses a big armchair near the door. He decides to start the conversation. “So.”

Lyf exhales. “So. First things first. I might be….. a little eldritch.”

Marius was not expecting that, although it’s not a surprise. “Edda, you’ve been blushing rainbow every time I tease you for a good ten years.”

Lyf fidgets a little. “I know _that_. It’s…. more, now.” They seem like they’re physically forcing themself to meet his eyes. “When the rest of the crew was gonna leave you behind, I got….. angry. Worse than I have before. Angry, and hurt, and scared. Scared that I’d have to live the next thirty years waiting for you to come back.” They gulp down some air. “Something…. happened. They haven’t told me what exactly, and I haven’t asked, but everything got rainbowy? And I got big, I think. Like, I was at the ceiling in the engine room. And Brian actually looked scared of me, and he turned the ship around.” Lyf is grabbing desperately at the hem of their sweater now, clearly without meaning to. “And then... Jonny shot me. And it hurt, and there was blood, and then….. I was fine. And I was on the floor. And Nastya told me the influence of Yog-Sothoth might be stronger than we thought, and Tim gave me a gun, and then Jonny? Jonny just handed me that pole, and I went and got you.”

Marius isn’t quite sure what to make of all that, so he resorts to covering with humor. “Well, I for one would love to get with a giant eldritch monster. Sounds hot as fuck, actually.”

Lyf pauses and looks down, and when they look back up at Marius, the vulnerability in their eyes would knock him on his ass if he weren’t already on it. “Would you also, uh, want to get with…. non-eldritch me?”

Marius’s breath catches in his throat. “Edda, I’ve been waiting twenty years to hear you say that.” He gets up from the chair and walks towards Lyf. 

Lyf laughs again as they stand as well, and Marius can see the tension leave their shoulders. “Only twenty years, Von Raum? Pity. You missed out on a third of your potential stupid pining.” 

“Well, you were pretty insufferable for the first ten years, I’m not going to—“

“Shut _up_ , Marius.” And the good Inspector grips Marius by the loose collar of his (their) bathrobe, and suddenly they’re kissing him. Marius just goes for it, hands coming to rest at the small of Lyf’s back, and Lyf giggles into his mouth and breaks away.

They pronounce their words very carefully, seemingly for comedic effect. “I have wanted to do that for so long, _you little shit._.” They crawl, rather undignified, up the the headboard of their bed, and pat the space next to them. “Come here.”

Marius goes all too willingly. Given the height difference, it feels only natural for Marius to curl into Lyf’s side, and Lyf lets him. There’s a smile in their voice when they speak again.

“You’re such a fucking nerd. We should’ve done this sooner.” 

Marius grumbles in indignation, but he concedes the point. What’s more important right now is that he’s fuckin’ tired, and being upright at all is seeming less and less sustainable, and now his head is in Lyf’s lap. Huh. Cool.

Marius decides that getting nice things can happen more than once in a day. “You know, Lyf, that thing you were doing earlier…. in the shower….”

Marius can practically hear Lyf’s eyes rolling. “Yes, Marius, I’ll play with your hair.” Their nails scratch along Marius’s scalp, and he feels himself melting further into the bed. He’s so tired…

“Hey. Marius.” He reluctantly opens his eyes. “I’m sorry the crew were being such assholes that I had to go full Yog-Sothoth to get them to come back.”

Marius’s heart grows a size or two instantaneously. “Yeah. Thank you for that, by the way.” There’s a bit of silence, broken only by the rustle of Marius’s hair over his ears. “I’m pretty used to it by now, but sometimes their brand of ‘fun’...... sucks. It just sucks.”

Lyf smiles down at him, and _fuck_ him if that isn’t the tenderest sight he’s seen. “Well, I really hope I don’t have to spend years without this–” they indicate the general state of affairs– “just ‘cause our crewmates feel like being assholes sometimes.”

 _Our_ crewmates. Marius likes the sound of that.

As much as it pains him to lose Lyf’s hand in his hair, Marius sits up and takes their face in his hands instead. Their cheeks go all rainbowy again, which is just adorable, as Marius tells them, “I won’t let that happen, Lyfrassir. I’m sure someone’s told you this by now, but we Mechanisms will sometimes take years-long sojourns off-ship. It seems improbable, but even after hundreds of years, we all somehow manage to find our way back. I don’t know why or how, but it happens. We all think it’s the Aurora herself calling us back.” He pauses to smile at Lyf’s smile, both of them caught up in a little sentimentality. “Now, if that ever happens to me, I have two reasons to come back as soon as possible.”

It’s all very soft and good, and then Lyf is kissing him, and tugging him forwards on top of them, and he’s horizontal again, but it’s even nicer this time. 

And it really is _nice_ , Marius thinks, _it’s nice to ask for what you want and to get it, and not lose anything else in the process. A happy ending for once._ And then one of Lyf’s hands shoves the shoulder of the bathrobe aside, and one hand grips his hair by the roots and pulls him down so they can ravish his collarbone, and then his mind isn’t thinking anything at all for a while.


End file.
